51. What's crippling the US is privately-funded elections.

If the US had adopted a public election mechanism like the nations of Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, etc. we'd actually be closer to Canada in terms of living standards than Mexico, especially with millions of people living in poverty including children and nearly 50,000,000 without health insurance.

It's the money. It always has been. It's why Congress simply passed a health insurance bill with no Public Option. It's why my state requires that I make less than 400/month before I could get, for instance, Medicaid. That's ludicrously low. A lot of things are skewed towards the interests of the rich. Poor people, frankly, don't have the money to elect people who look after them.